The Google’s Stadia subreddit is normally filled with beaming positivity from fellow Redditors despite the more negative reception from the general public as well as mainstream media.
In a recent turn of events, there now appears to be a rather grim post written about the gaming service launched by Google. Among several things, the highly upvoted and lengthy post mainly highlights the lack of latest features, games, and the absence of prompt communication from Google with regards to Stadia.
What’s more, it was rather unsettling to find that the Google employees are also on the moderator team of the subreddit for Stadia, which is generally not the way Reddit functions.
“Stadia has officially gone 40 days without a new game announcement/release, feature update, or real community update. It has been out for 69 days. It’s time we demand better,” read the introduction of the post.
But then, Google did make an announcement about Stadia recently, wherein the company stated that it is “tracking” 120 games that will come to the platform in 2020, out of which ten games were supposedly “Stadia-first”; however, there hasn’t been any list of the games out yet.
Moreover, Google also revealed that it would also introduce other features including 4k gaming on the web, increasing support on additional Android phones, wireless gameplay on the web by means of Stadia controller and so on.
On the subreddit, it became apparent that the post discussing the issues faced by Google Stadia users was finally written as the subscription renewal date was nearing.
Here are a few key issues highlighted by the user Gizoogle: lack of updates regarding the promised “120 game mystery bonanza”, supporting Stadia on Pixel smartphones alone, no plans to support iOS, not mentioning family sharing, and many others.
A Google-employee, who also happens to be the moderator of the subreddit, replied addressing the post and primarily said that he would “make sure this post doesn’t get removed.”
Though the effort to protect the post sounds commendable, it is worth noting that a moderator in a fan-based group works for the company itself, has enough power to control the posts, and thereby influence the overall commentary regarding a product/service is making several heads turn.
The Google-employee-cum-moderator had no new product news or information to share, though. Users were simply thanked for their patience and were informed that their feedback was duly noted.
